Eleanor Frierson, who passed away in April 2013, was the grande dame of partnerships to improve public access to federal and international science information. For 10 years, she helped spearhead U.S. interagency efforts to make federal science information more accessible to Americans, playing an absolutely crucial leadership role on the Science.gov Alliance. She took Science.gov all the way from a nascent concept through to its maturation. Ms. Frierson also made similar contributions to the international science portal, WorldWideScience.org.
When I became Director of the DOE’s Office of Scientific and Technical Information in 1997, we had a grand vision for a new era of global discovery. The way we provided access to scientific and technical information could be revolutionized. The internet showed promise, unbelievable promise. How exciting it was to become OSTI’s leader at that point in time.
Although the development of the Department of Energy’s web-searchable databases greatly enabled our scientific community to access R&D collections, the search technology was inefficient. How could we make the information more easily accessible to the public? Somehow we had to wrap our arms around and embrace new technologies. We had the talent, we had the motivation, and we definitely had the energy. We knew there was a better way to improve the Government’s service to its people.
Ten years ago this month Science.gov was launched! The cross-agency portal was created to break down the stovepipes of science information, knowing that it is difficult to know which federal agency holds what information. Thanks to longtime relationships between the agency senior information managers of CENDI as well as a partnership with USA.gov, and with the efforts of many, many supporters, a unique and grassroots project was undertaken and still provides an important service today. A special thanks to our Science.gov Alliance co-chairs during these years: Eleanor Frierson, NAL/USDA (retired); Tom Lahr, NBII/USGS (retired); Cindy Etkin, GPO; Tina Gheen, LOC; Annie Simpson, USGS.
Oak Ridge is rapidly emerging from a secret city into the hub of open science information. How did this happen? It’s an amazing story.
In 1942, deep within the quiet farm hills of East Tennessee, a secret city called Oak Ridge was created seemingly overnight. Approximately 75,000 workers worked tirelessly to refine uranium ore into fissionable material. When the first atomic bomb was dropped in Japan and World War II came to an end, their work for the Manhattan Project was revealed to them and to the world. Their secret is still commemorated today. Oak Ridge, Tennessee has much to be proud of: Science created its beginning and science continues to be vital to its future.
This is a big year for Science.gov, the interagency federal science information portal on the web since 2002. A major upgrade has just been completed and is available at http://www.science.gov.
An updated look is in place, with a slideshow demonstrating some of the major activities of the 13 participating science agencies
Multimedia sources are now available and automatically searched
Visualization of related and narrower topics is an optional display, as is the ability to navigate visually
A modern wind turbine has more than 8,000 component parts that must withstand the wear and tear of wind stresses. DOE researchers and stakeholders have been working hard to predict and eliminate wind stress related barriers and extend the lifespan of wind turbines. Working on a paper on this subject? OSTI can save you wear and tear by providing web tools that eliminate the need to search through database after database to find the research you need. For example, if you use DOE’s Science Accelerator, you could search through 11 DOE databases, and in about 10 seconds or less, retrieve hundreds of documents about the use of simulations to understand wind turbine shear stress.
Hard work and innovation pay off! Government Computer News (GCN) and Information Week have published their Top Ten Federal mobile apps lists, and Science.gov was the only interagency mobile application named to both! Since last year, over 100 federal agencies have established mobile apps in response to a recent White House initiative requiring them to make their services available for mobile use. GCN evaluated the apps on their usefulness, how helpful they actually were, and also on that intangible “cool factor.” GCN applauded Science.gov Mobile’s surprisingly powerful search engine that checks science data from 13 federal agencies and said “It could probably even be a boon to researchers to keep them from duplicating research, and it will certainly help your kids get an A on their science papers.” Information Week published its “10 Handy Mobile Apps From Uncle Sam” and noted that: “(The) Science.gov site searches scientific information from more than 50 databases and 2,100 government-affiliated websites. On-the-go science buffs can now access that data trove via a mobile version of the website or a downloadable Android app. Users can get Wikipedia and EurekAlert! results related to their searches.”
Preservation Week was created in 2010 because there are over 630 million items in collecting institutions such as libraries that require immediate attention and care.
Preserving books, articles and other important information is no easy task because as many as 80% of these institutions have no paid staff dedicated to carry out these activities, and 22% operate without any collections care personnel. Complicating matters, it is estimated that 2.6 billion items are not protected by an emergency plan, which means these resources are in jeopardy should a disaster strike. One way to protect and preserve these resources, as well as make them more readily available to a wider audience, is digital preservation.
“Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.”
~Albert Einstein
As you prepare your taxes, keep in mind that April is Mathematics Awareness Month. This year’s theme is, “Mathematics, Statistics and the Data Deluge”.
Mathematics is used throughout the world as an essential tool in many fields, including natural science, engineering, medicine and the social sciences. Large amounts of data are collected every day, and scientific data comes in massive amounts from supercomputers, sensor networks, astronomical instruments and other devices. These data need to be sorted out and understood in order to be useful.
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